


I Can't Lose You

by T_Sauce



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Angst, Emotional, F/F, Other, Tumblr Prompt, Violence, alex gets hurt, kara doesn't cope very well with the notion, supergirl loses her powers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-27
Updated: 2016-11-27
Packaged: 2018-09-02 17:08:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,552
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8675719
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/T_Sauce/pseuds/T_Sauce
Summary: Based off Tumblr Prompt/Fanart from 'Kokako'During a particularly nasty fight against CADMUS, Kara blows her powers. And as the shot rings out and she watches her sister fall, she can't get to her on time.(Note: No deaths, only angst)





	

**Author's Note:**

> This is a prompt I saw from a beautiful piece of Tumblr Fanart by ‘konako’. The prompt was “Supergirl has lost her powers and saw Alex get shot in the head. The bullet grazed her forehead and knocked her out, but for a heartbreaking moment, Kara thought her big sister was dead. Alex is leaning against an ambulance stretcher and Kara is hugging around Alex’s middle with her head on Alex’s chest. It’s the only way she can hear Alex’s heartbeat now she’s lost her powers” so I thought I’d give it a go as Alex and Kara’s relationship is my favourite part of the show. I hope I give the amazing artwork justice.

The worst day of Kara Danvers’ life was a Tuesday. Anyone who knows her secret would have thought the worst day of her life was the day her planet exploded. The death of her planet meant the deaths of everyone she knew and loved, friends and family including her own parents – the only notable exception to the heartbreaking demise was the cousin she followed to Earth; albeit a few decade’s late. 

And it was. 

Well, it was one of the worst days of her life. Followed closely by the day they lost Jeremiah Danvers when she had been on Earth just over a year. The worst thing about that day for her was not the fact that Jeremiah had gone. Though losing the man who had taught her, helped her control her new found powers, and loved her and who she had loved fiercely in return as a father was heartbreaking, it was the crying that she couldn’t tune out no matter how much she tried. 

The crying in the house that was now her home lasted for days. She had held Alex as she had sobbed, her heart breaking with the death of her beloved father. She had stroked her hair; much like Alex had when she arrived on Earth and couldn’t sleep through the nightmares. Eliza tried to be strong for them, but at night when Kara lay in bed and Alex’s sobs had finally subsided as she fell into a deep, exhausted sleep, Kara could hear Eliza. She tried to be quiet, and Kara understood that. A normal human would not have been able to pick up the muffled sounds through the walls. But Kara was not a normal human. She was a Kryptonian. Her enhanced hearing meant she heard every sniffle and every cry. Even the way Eliza sobbed Jeremiah’s name as she clutched a pillow. 

These were two of the worst days of her life. But she was a child, and it was out of her hands. There was nothing she could do except be there for both her cousin, Kal-El, and for her adopted mother and her adoptive sister. 

No, the worst day of her entire life, both has Kara Zor-El and Kara Danvers was a Tuesday evening, a few days before Thanksgiving – because she had the power to stop something, she was Supergirl for crying out loud, but she still hadn’t been able to stop the bullet that hit her sister. 

It had been a routine evening. She had been leaving CatCo after having handed an article in to Snapper Carr – the man was an asshole, but he was a hell of a good reporter, and she was learning a lot from him. As she left, the sun was setting and she pulled her coat around herself a little bit tighter. She didn’t feel the cold like humans did, but she felt slightly uncomfortable by the breeze that was blowing. 

As she was walking to Noonan’s to grab some sticky buns for Danvers Sister Night, she had felt her phone vibrate in her pocket. She pulled it out and saw that it was Alex calling, so she answered the phone with a cheery greeting. 

“Alex, hey, I’m just heading to Noonan’s for sticky buns. Do you want me to get anything else?” she smiled into the phone.

“Supergirl, we need you” Had been the brisk response from her sister, DEO mode Alex, not sister Alex.

“Where?” Kara’s persona shifted into Supergirl mode almost instantly. 

“Outside L Corp. It appears CADMUS has launched an attack against Lena Luthor. Lillian Luthor has an army equipped with more advanced technology than we have ever seen before” Alex explained. 

“I’m on my way” Kara ended the call and put her phone in her pocket. Disappearing down the nearest alleyway, a blue and red blur shooting into the sky seconds later. 

Once she arrived at L Corp, she quickly found her sister and Hank in amongst the crowds. It was mayhem, and Alex, along with Vasquez, Detective Sawyer and Hank were in the front lines so to speak, trying to stop the CADMUS operatives from gaining access to L Corp. Shots were being fired, both from guns, and from alien tech.

“Alex” She shouted as she ran over to her sister, holding an arm up to stop a bullet that was heading there way - so inconvenient. 

“Supergirl, thank goodness. Lena Luthor is inside. We were issued this a few minutes ago, much like the other video” Alex held up her phone, the alien face of CADMUS, and the voice of Lillian Luthor combined.

_ ‘Agent Danvers, Agent Henshaw. I just want my daughter. Let me take her and we will be on our way, and no-one needs to her hurt. My daughter has disobeyed me one too many times, and turned her back on our family but I need her now. I do not want to kill innocent humans; that is not the purpose of CADMUS. But if you make this difficult for us, a little civilian casualty is a small price to pay for the greater good. So call your agents off Lena, and we’ll be on our way’ _

The video ended as abruptly as it had begun. 

“Lillian knows we have had agents shadowing Lena since CADMUS kidnapped you and Mon-EL. After you determined Lena knew nothing about what her mother was up to, we decided we needed to protect her. L Corp has some alien technology that would be lethal to everyone in the hands of CADMUS” Hank explained, watching the scene unfold in front of them. 

Everything in the next 15 minutes was a blur for Kara as she took down CADMUS operative after operative. Not to kill them, that wasn’t what Supergirl did. But then the enhanced humans turned up. The ones like Metallo. 

Except these were stronger than he ever was, and it wasn’t long until Kara felt like she was outnumbered. She could see the human bodies falling around her - the bodies of fellow DEO agents; the bodies of her friends. 

“Kara, we have agents protecting Lena,” Alex shouted, Kara heard through her earpiece as she threw another punch at an enhanced human. 

“Guys,” Kara then heard Winn through the earpiece, “I’ve completed the electromagnetic generator, it should theoretically take out the magnetic skeleton of the humans and of the energy in their weapons”

“I’m on it,” Hank shouted and Kara saw him leap from the ground and head back towards the DEO to collect their weapon. 

Kara winced as a gun was fired at her, and she barely had chance to right herself before an attack from the other side happened, using her heat vision to hold off the attack. 

“STOP” she heard a shout above the noise, and the noise put her off, causing one of the weapons to hit her square in the chest. 

It didn’t take her long to register that her powers were starting to fade, as she started to feel the burning of the weapon’s ray as she struggled to fight back. 

She saw Hank arrive back through her rapidly failing vision, and she felt the weapon stop as she magnetic field went off around her, giving off a pulse of energy that knocked her off her feet. She struggled to her feet, the pain in her head and the taste of blood in her mouth more apparent than ever. 

She watched as the enhanced humans fell at her feet, the green lights of energy in their chest dying out. Their weapons fizzled and disintegrated in their hands. She stood with her back to the entrance of L Corp and she saw in Hank and Alex’s expression rather than hear the noise behind her. She spun around - immediately feeling dizzy and nauseas as the quick movement - and saw Lena Luthor being walked towards them by a CADMUS operative, a gun pointed at her head. 

“Lena” Kara whispered, taking a step forwards. 

“Stop right there” the obviously human agent ordered, pushing the gun harder into Lena’s temple, “Or else she gets to find out what a bullet of lead feels like being pushed into your brain”

Kara stopped. 

“You won’t get away with this” Kara whispered to them, her eyes finding Lena’s, seeing the barest hint of fear, but finding anger and steely determination instead.

“Supergirl, I’m fine, you need to go. Please, leave and get your people out of here” Lena urged, pleading with the hero to leave. 

“Oh Lena”

Kara shivered as she heard the voice of Lillian Luthor behind her. She turned slowly, the throbbing in her head getting more persistent with each breath she took as a human.Lillian Luthor was walking onto the scene, looking like she had just stepped out of the pages of the very magazine Kara worked for. She had two men flanking her on either side; both of them holding what Kara could make out were automatic rifles. 

“Mother” Lena bit out as Lillian approached her. “What is the meaning of this attack? If you wanted to see me you only had to make an appointment with my assistant” Kara saw Alex bite back a smile out of the corner of her eye, before she felt a searing pain in her leg, and felt herself fall to her knees. It took a moment for her to realise she had been knocked to the ground but one of the CADMUS thugs, and she then felt a pain in her temple as a gun was smashed into the side of her head. 

The pain completely blindsiding her, Kara fell to the ground completely. 

“Supergirl!” Lena and Alex shouted at the same time as they watched the blonde fall. 

“Any more snark like that from you Lena, and she dies immediately” Lillian said, as one of her henchman pulled his coat away and a knife was shown in his holster, the glittering green a sure sign of the Kryptonite in the blade. 

“Mother, just stop, I’ll come with you, I’ll do whatever you want, just leave her alone” Lena pleaded, realising the gravity of the situation. 

“Oh darling” Lillian took Lena’s chin between her thumb and forefinger, “You really need to work on your expressions. You do make your feelings for this pathetic excuse for an alien really quite obvious”

Lena shook her head from her mother’s grip, immediately looking down at her feet to avoid looking at Supergirl. 

Lillian looked back around at Kara, who was currently climbing to her feet again. She stood on wobbly legs as she slowly straightened her posture. 

“Leave her alone Lillian. You want the tech to kill me, so why not just kill me now”? She goaded, as she saw Alex and Hank approach out of the corner of her eye. 

“Oh my dear - you are the end goal that is true. But that is not the only goal we have, and if I kill you too soon, where is the fun in that” Lillian approached Kara, and stood looking at the fallen hero. 

“Then what is it”? Kara heard Alex ask and she looked over at her sister who now had a gun pointed at Lillian. 

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you Agent Danvers - after all, I have a gun pointed at your now very human sister” Lillian grinned menacingly, giving an unknown signal to her thugs around her. 

“Try and hurt her, see what happens” Alex threatened, raising the gun higher.

Kara isn’t sure what happened next. It sort of happened as follows. Lena managed to turn and punch her thug in her face. Gunshots were fired as she saw Hank race towards Lena. She felt another pain in her head as she was hit again, and then felt, with sheer terror, the gun being raised as Alex ran towards her. 

And then the shot was fired.

Kara got up as she felt the trigger being fired and she heard Maggie screaming Alex’s name. But without the super speed she was still ten feet away as she saw the bullet hit Alex in the forehead. She stopped mid step as she tried to reach her sister. She saw the blood on her sisters head drip down her face as she fell as she stood. Everything went silent as Alex fell forward in slow motion. Kara could hear her own heartbeat as her blood ran cold as she watched the person she loved more than anything in her life fall. Tears burned her eyes as she stood, seeming like forever as Alex crumpled on the ground. She couldn’t hear a heartbeat. She couldn’t hear her sister’s heart beating. The heart beat she had memorised a long time ago. The heartbeat she could easily recognise in amongst a sea of hundreds of thousands. 

She turned around to the CADMUS thug behind her, the smoking gun still in his hand. She heard the other bullets around her as the DEO fought back against the CADMUS thugs who were now retreating. 

Hank got to Lena and made short work of taking out the thug who had held her at gun point, morphing into his true form as J’onn J’onzz as the image of watching the woman he thought of as a daughter fall forever etched into his mind. 

Maggie ran to Alex, and rolled her over, feeling frantically for any sign of a heartbeat or breathing. 

Kara didn’t notice any of this. Her vision was focussed on the man who had shot her sister; the man who was now above all going to die. Kara forgot that she had no powers. She forgot about the pain in her head, and the fact her entire body was inches away to collapse itself. This man had killed her sister, and he was going to pay. 

Her fists find the man’s face as tries to push her away, trying to get to his weapon, but he is too slow. Sure, Supergirl may have no powers, but a very angry Kryptonian could still cause damage. She her fists continued onto his face as he lay on the ground, she heard the ambulances arrive, and then she felt the warm arms around her and she was pulled away. 

“Supergirl” Lena’s voice was warm and frantic as she pulled her away, forcing Kara to face her. “You need to stop” she urged and all of a sudden, the adrenaline in her system faded away and she just looked into Lena’s green eyes, feeling grounded as she became aware of all of her surroundings again. 

“Lena, I” Kara started, but she didn’t know what to say, she could feel herself shaking as the full impacts of losing her powers became apparent. 

“Alex” Kara sounded broken as she whispered her sister’s name, and she looked over to where the paramedics were surrounding her sister – Vasquez and Hank by her side. 

“Go,” Lena urged, squeezing her hand before pushing the younger woman forwards gently, “Your sister needs you more than anyone”

Kara walked forwards in slow motion as the tears welled up as she saw Alex laying on the ground. Blood dripping down her face, body limp as the paramedics pulled her onto a stretcher. Kara pushed through the agents standing around Alex’s body, her entire focus on nothing but reaching her sister.

“Kara,” Hank, now back in human form reached her and pulled her back. 

“Let go of me Hank” Kara turned to him, anger blazing in her blue eyes, the kind of anger which made Hank hesitate, the kind of anger he had never seen in the younger Danvers’ eyes before. 

“Kara, you need to let them help her” Hank urged.

“Help her, she’s dead. You can’t help the dead” Kara spat out, hands shaking as Hank took her head in his hands gently.

“She’s not dead Kara. She’s unconscious. The bullet grazed her forehead and knocked her out, but she isn’t dead” he explained, watching as Kara’s features became confused, before she finally gave in to all of the emotions swirling in her head and she broke down. Tears fell down her face as her body shook with her sobs as Hank pulled her into his arms and held her. Blood on her face mingled with her tears as she could taste the iron and the salt as it dripped into her mouth. She didn’t care. 

Alex was alive. For a few minutes, she thought her sister had been dead. Alex. The one person Kara could always depend on. The person who was there for Kara no matter what – from the moment she arrived on the planet. Alex was her person. She had held Kara through the nightmares as she remembered the death of Krypton and her parents. The broken hearts and the breakdowns about work stress, like when Cat had had a particularly bad day and taken it out on her. 

She had been there for the good days, holding pizza and pot stickers at her door, as they laughed about random things. She was there on the days when things turned a corner, like when Kara and Cat had reached an understanding, a friendship if you will. The day Kara became a reporter, when she won the science fair, when she got accepted into the college she wanted, when she successfully baked a birthday cake for Eliza after approximately 23 failed attempts.

Alex, who had come to her first when she realised her feelings for Maggie were more than just friendly feelings, and who Kara had gone to when she realised the same thing about Lena Luthor. Alex was her person, and she had nearly lost her tonight, and there was nothing she could have done to prevent it. 

The one time Alex needed her, needed her to be Supergirl and she had failed. 

Kara burst into a new set of tears. 

It took a long time for her to get herself back under control, and Hank just held her the entire time. A soothing hand rubbing at her back as he muttered things under his breath, like ‘I’ve got you Kara, I’ve got you’.

She doesn’t know how long it took, but she felt another hand on her shoulder and Maggie was stood at her side, her own eyes red and tear stained, but she smiled as she managed to breathe out, “Supergirl, she’s awake. Alex is awake and she’s asking for you”

Kara was on her way towards the ambulance where Alex was standing, leaning against a gurney, a piece of gauze taped to her forehead. She was pale, and she seemed uneasy. But she was alive. And that’s all it took for Kara to fall to her knees in front of her sister and wrap both her arms around her waist; pressing her ear against Alex’s chest, hearing the heartbeat, steadily beating away. Up until that moment, part of her was in disbelief. She had seen Alex fall, but that familiar thump thump under the skin was real. Alex was alive, this wasn’t a dream. 

“I’m okay Kara” Alex whispered as she held her sister, feeling the sobs wracking the blonde’s body as she clung on for dear life. “I’m okay”

Kara pulled away and stared at her sister, tears streaming down her face. “Alex I’m so sorry. I blew out my powers, I tried, I really tried, but I couldn’t get to you in time, and I watched you fall, and I thought you were dead, and I let you down, oh Rao, I’m so sorry” she blurted out, the words coming as fast as the tears, as Alex’s own eyes started to tear up. 

“Hey, Kara, you could never let me down. You’re here, I’m here. I’m okay I promise” Alex assured, using her thumbs to wipe the tears from her sisters face.

“I couldn’t reach you in time, I thought I’d lost you. I couldn’t hear your heart beating any more; I can always hear your heart. I’m tuned into you constantly in the back of my mind, and then it was gone” Kara whimpered.

“That’s because you blew your powers, not because my heart stopped sweetheart.” Alex looked down at her sister who was falling apart completely in front of her.

The paramedics around them carried on, lifting away the injured DEO agents on stretchers, the sirens echoing into the night as smoke drifted around them from fires caused by the alien weaponry. People bustled around as the FBI turned up to take statements as the CADMUS operatives who hadn’t managed to escape were arrested. Lillian Luthor had escaped along with a few of the enhanced humans. Lena gave her statement to the FBI and joined Hank and Maggie where they were standing silently both of them also thanking their own God’s that Alex was still with them. Maggie reached for Lena’s hand as she joined them, seemingly needing the human touch to calm her shaking nerves. Lena squeezed back, also grateful for the human contact.

“I can’t lose you Alex” Kara whispered, unaware of their audience.

“You won’t, I’m here and I always will be” Alex whispered as Kara pulled herself back in, her ear against Alex’s chest once again, listening to the sound of her home beating underneath her head. 

It took a while before Kara was willing to let go. 


End file.
